HSK 6 · Time

凌晨 língchén “early morning” in Chinese

Same in Traditional

What 凌晨 means

  1. early morning
  2. small hours
  3. very early in the morning
  4. in the wee hours

How to say 凌晨

  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale凌líng2nd tone, rising
  • Pitch chart of the second tone: rises from mid to high, 3 to 5 on the five-level scale晨chén2nd tone, rising

凌晨 in a sentence

  1. 我们聊到凌晨两点。

    Wǒmen liáo dào língchén liǎng diǎn.

    We chatted until two in the morning.

    Sentence #900685 from Tatoeba · converted to simplified characters · translation adapted

How 凌晨 is built

Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.

The character 凌 (líng) with each of its parts in a different colour
凌língto approach
  • 冫ice · bīngMeaning part
  • 夌to dawdle · língSound part

冫 hints at the meaning (ice); 夌 (líng) hints at the sound. Compare it with líng.

The character 晨 (chén) with each of its parts in a different colour
晨chénmorning
  • 日sun · rìMeaning part
  • 辰morning · chénSound part

日 hints at the meaning (sun); 辰 (chén) hints at the sound. Compare it with chén.

How to write 凌晨

凌 10 strokes · 晨 11 strokes

Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.

凌晨 (língchén) stroke order chart: each stroke of the characters in the order you write them
Stroke order chart for 凌晨 (língchén). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.

Words related to 凌晨

Words with 凌

冰激凌bīngjīlíng · ice cream

Words with 晨

清晨qīngchén · early morning

More words: Time & Sequence

连年liánnián · for years in a row历代lìdài · successive dynasties历来lìlái · always黎明límíng · dawn屡次lǚcì · repeatedly漫长màncháng · very long年度niándù · year (e.g. financial year)农历nónglì · lunar calendar

FAQs

凌晨 (língchén) means “early morning” or “small hours”. It is an HSK 6 word.
Say it língchén: líng with a 2nd tone, then chén with a 2nd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 凌晨 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type lingchen with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 凌晨 from the suggestions. Typing lingchen into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
凌晨 is an HSK 6 word in the HSK 2.0 word lists.

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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.